Now, first, let's all just acknowledge here and now that somehow, the people who voted for Bush based on love and fear are going to totally not care that he's destroying the future safety net for multiple generations, most notably the one who just voted him into office, against his explicit promise. Truth doesn't sell for much these days, and lies are the status quo. Second, I'm not going to rant about how giving money to the church is wrong, nor am I going to complain about the fact that in theory, he could stop all the whack-job spending and put money into something useful. Like preventing people who worked their entire lives and payed into a system from not getting their due.

What I think is important is this: when I saw those two headlines juxtaposed, the initial joke that made itself known in my head was the idea that Bush maybe wants to fund faith-based charities becuase the only way he's keeping any of the magic promises he made during the campaign is an act of God. Then something scary happened: I can actually visualize Bush pushing faith-based charities becuase he believes God will help him for tithing. Seriously. This is the 'My favorite political philosopher is Jesus Christ' president. Can you actually say that the prospect of Bush violating the constitution becuase of his belief in a holy mandate is something you find unbelievable? Unlikely?

As an aside, for those of you who are confused: a "faith-based charity" is a Judeo-Christian charity which is run pretty much explicitly by, or at the behest of, a church or synagogue. At first, as the literal reading implies, I thought it was a charity which didn't exist in the strict epistemic sense of the word, but which one could be said to believe in anyway. For example, the Neverland Orphanage. This was confusing since they could have called them "church-based charities" or "religious charities" and that would have been accurate. But people might have noticed that there's something about "establishing" a church in the first amendment. Not that the first amendment really exists any more. Then again - now that the freedom of speech and press and free practice of religion is basically nonexistant, maybe we can get federal funding for them?